


More than an Arm and a Leg

by AotA



Category: Iron Man (Comic), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: GFY
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-01-19 23:48:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 9,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1488700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AotA/pseuds/AotA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's not a weapon, it's more of a highly advanced prosthesis." or: Months after what seem to be Tony Stark's singed remains are found in a cave in Afghanistan, a Djinn born of vengeance starts ripping through the Ten Rings and any others like them to salve its rage, staying its blood stained hands only from harming the innocent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Abu Bakar is screaming at them, anger writ in his voice as he kicks the man he had thrown to the ground mercilessly. He barks at one of his men and storms off as the subordinate raises his gun to the kicked man's head. The downed man shakily raises his hands in the air, his pained face sickeningly white under his tan.

A higher pitched scream fills the air, slowly at first, distant and far away, but it soon comes closer until it is nearly overwhelming. The men with the guns look around and up but they only see a gleam of gold before it _roars_ and something that shines almost blindingly in the midday sun lands in their midst with a ringing clamor of metal.

A golden face with glowing, infernal white-blue lit eyes glares at them as the golden creature rises to its feet in the middle of the gathered people. Even those further away can see its sheer size as it towers over the unfortunate man standing the closest. Its chest is full of fire, glowing even more brightly than its eyes.

The moment seems to stand still, until bullets start pinging off its golden skin and the creature retaliates without hesitation. A fist throws the first shooter up and away with inhuman strength. It screams again and again, each time light spearing forth from its hands and striking down those that are shooting at it.

It turns, to the horror of the assembled women and children held and gunpoint by the invading men, to them at last, hands high, ready to do the same to them.

It hesitates, to their surprise. Its hands, which had been splattered with red, lowered slowly. Its warning scream trails off and it _stares_ at them with its alien, pitiless gaze.

One moment they stare at it, the next more gunshots are ringing in their ears and bodies are falling to the ground.

They are alive, but... the attackers are... dead? They stare at each other in shock and confusion before they look back to the creature that had came and killed with inhuman ease. They pray that they are not next even though they had been seemingly spared.

One boy though, it more concerned with his father than any possible attack from the creature and breaks free of his mother to run to his father. "Papa!" he cries, "Papa!" The boy clings to his father, as despite the pain on his face, the father wraps his son in his arms with bottomless relief, burying his face against the boy.

They watch it watch the terrified, relieved reunion, but thankfully the sudden move does nothing to incite the creature to violence. Instead, it nods, then it turns and walks harmlessly past the pair with heavy footsteps.

They watch it walk away, directly toward a wall of a crumbling building.

What is it doing now? they wonder.

They don't have to wonder long, for it punches its fist straight through the wall and yanks out... a man.

It's _Abu Bakar._

Despite their fear, anger spurs them closer to the creature as it stands over their tormentor. The creature's hand glows as it screams its warning for Bakar, but then the creature looks up at them and the scream trails off slowly as the light in its hand dims. It looks from them, to Bakar, and back.

Finally, the creature purrs a dark, inhuman sound of satisfaction. "Vengeance is yours," its twisted, inhuman voice says. It turns away and takes to the sky with another scream as light and heat shoots from its hands and feet.

They look from the golden speck in the sky, to each other, to the groaning man lying on the ground where the creature had thrown him.

One man takes a cautious, shuffling step closer, and that tiny little movement decides them.

The creature had given Bakar to them even though it had clearly wanted to take its own sort of vengeance. They didn't want to have it come back if they did a poor job, did they? Not for the golden creature, not for their families, their mothers and father, sisters and brothers, their children...

Bakar looks up at them, eyes widening with delicious fear as they loom over him.

The creature might not have come to save them, but that was what it had done when it had come to wreck vengeance upon Abu Bakar. For a creature of vengeance it was also gracious because it had allowed them to carry out its vengeance as well as their own when it had acknowledged the debt that Abu Bakar bore them.

Abu Bakar is right to fear them.

He will never torture or kill anyone _ever_ again.

They pray that their golden visitor agrees and finds satisfaction in the sentence they lay down.

* * *

Days later, the boy whose father had been saved first sees the golden creature, the Djinn, clean of all the blood the boy remembered spattered on the Djinn's gleaming skin. It is crouching where their tormentor's body had lain on the sands. When he drops his tray, the Djinn looks up, pinning him with its glowing eyes. The boy freezes in excited terror and awe as the Djinn approaches. He shrinks back as the Djinn raises its hand toward him, but all the creature does is ruffle his hair with its cold, hard, metallic hand and continue walking past him out into the desert.

He stares after the inhuman creature whose skin is made up of a precious metal that is so rarely seen in his village whose insides are made up of smokeless fire so hot it has turned blue and he is thankful that the Djinn who Abu Bakar had enraged enough to show itself and come to their village was fair and merciful because it could have just as easily been one that would have taken all of their lives while seeking the man's death.

The Djinn takes to the sky leaving a trail of blue like a firefly at night, the scream of its leaving just a quiet sound in the distance compared to the violent sound that lingers in his dreams and nightmares.


	2. Chapter 2

Director Nick Fury is not a man prone to superstition, so when he hears about a so-called "Djinn" tearing up the Middle East, he doesn't automatically think something supernatural is afoot. Fury never entirely puts it to the side because he has seen enough weird shit in the line of duty that he never rules _anything_ out.

The good news is that the Djinn is largely considered benevolent, unless you are a terrorist, and _especially_ if you are a terrorist holding large amounts of Stark Industries weaponry. According to the analysts, the Djinn is drawn to large caches of Stark weaponry, but not to steal it; no, the Djinn seems to vastly prefer blowing everything up and catching any scragglers to kill.

The bad news is that they haven't been able to get eyes on the Djinn and the Djinn had already cost them a Raptor when a pair of them had accidentally-on-purpose engaged the Djinn when it strayed a little too closely to a restricted airspace for the twitchy trigger fingers of the flyboys to resist, which by all accounts led to an extraordinarily clever game of tag between the overeager pilots and the human-shaped supersonic capable rocket that the Djinn seemed to be.

The good news for that bit of bad news was that it seemed to be an accident and the result of the pilots simply _not thinking_ as much as it was the Djinn's for using itself as an improvised ballistic weapon against the Raptor they had lost. The Djinn had even plucked the pilot who had ejected out of the air after his parachute failed to deploy and placed him safely on the ground before disappearing into the craggy wilds of the Afghanistan mountains.

There were very obvious, vastly different reactions from the Djinn when it came to terrorists shooting at it and when legitimate government bodies did the same. In the case of the former, the terrorists were unilaterally killed. For the latter, even if they were using Stark weaponry, the Djinn always fled rather than engage if it was left a choice in the matter.

More to the point, Fury actually had the opportunity to view a small, little known report of a confrontation between the Djinn and small team of Afghan military that proved that the difference was not an isolated occurrence, nor limited to the United States military. The Afghan troops had fired. The Djinn... hadn't. That wasn't to say that it had just stood there, but it hadn't retaliated at all.

No one had been harmed over the course of the encounter.

This intrigues the Director even more than the reports of the aerial confrontation. He demands more information, ordering his agents to turn in even rumors about the Djinn.

Surprisingly, the rumors tell him quite a bit about the Djinn's apparent character, even if it isn't worth much in a military sense.

Rumors say that it is a sun-golden creature that brings death and paints itself red with the blood of its victims, but they also say that it spares the lives of those innocents who cross its path: women, children, and good, honest, hardworking men. They call it Iron Man, for though it is an Ifrit born of vengeance it is shaped mostly like a man and salves its rage with the living iron of its foes.

Information taken from what they found at what seemed to be the Djinn's earliest appearance was that the Djinn was apparently working under a vendetta.

The skull of the man the Djinn had "given them" was displayed in an odd sort of appeasement of the Djinn for "its kindness" in its gift.

Nick Fury _wanted_ the Djinn.

It was against all sanity, according to those that didn't know him.

Fury however, had a feeling that "the Djinn" would be the truest fit for the "officially" scrapped _Avengers_ Initiative.

He just needs to be sure that that gut feeling is the right one before he offers this Middle Eastern Djinn an olive branch.

* * *

Hawkeye watches as his quarry finally shows up. He is not at all surprised that said quarry is a sleek, golden figure that it is blatantly some form of highly advanced technology. What Hawkeye can't yet know is if it is a person in a, blatantly, powered armor suit, if it is a drone of some sort, or if it is a semi- or even fully autonomous robot of some sort. Thoughts going something like "How is this my life?" ran through his head but he was an agent of SHIELD: he got _paid_ to deal with this kind of bullshit.

True to the reports, immediately after the Djinn's arrival, the shooting starts, and so does the screaming and explosions.

Hawkeye sighs. _This_ is the guy Fury wants?

He is tempted to nock an arrow and give the guy a signature Hawkeye hello but Coulson had said that there was to be _no_ confrontation of any sort between him and the Djinn. Hawkeye was only there to observe: his specialty. Besides putting opportune arrows through unsuspecting people's brains and hearts and other vital organs of course.

Even as Hawkeye watches, the Djinn homes in on the largest groups of Stark weaponry in the lot and fiddles with them for mere moments each before closing up whatever parts that he messes with and moves on. The hairs on the back of Hawkeye's neck rise just watching the methodical repurposing of weapons that were supposed to be tamper-proof into a reckoning for their wrongful owners all the while under fire from the insurgents whose base the Djinn had oh so casually crashed.

This guy... actually has style.

Hawkeye is impressed. Almost despite himself.

That is the _only_ reason Hawkeye doesn't fall off his perch when he _loses sight_ of his mark. Honestly.

It is also the only reason he doesn't do it later when the Djinn somehow manages to _sneak up on him_ and snatch him out of his hidey hole before the entire place blows itself to bits.

The Djinn sets him down not too far from the burning base and stares at him, despite the arrow that Hawkeye has nocked and pointed the Djinn's direction. "What the _hell_?" Hawkeye grouches at the stupidly shiny robot-man as he lowers his bow. All the voices in his in-ear comm have fallen silent. The Djinn was obviously jamming it.

The Djinn's head tilts to the side and he makes an odd, muffled sound, before replying in _English_ , "That should be my question. What kind of agency lets their agents use a _bow and arrows_ of all things? Isn't that kind of old school?" Despite the unnatural, electronic distortion of the voice, the Djinn actually sounds _miffed_ that Hawkeye is using a bow.

Hawkeye freezes, before he starts to laugh. "You know exactly which agency I work for, don't you?" he complains.

The Djinn shrugs, "There is only so many times I can see people from an agency poking around before I get curious. I have got to say though that 'Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division' is the worst name for an agency I have ever had the misfortune of running into."

Hawkeye snorts and puts his arrow back in the quiver and shoulders his bow. The Djinn was obviously here to talk, oddly enough. He holds out his hand, "Hawkeye."

"I get called a bunch of different things," the Djinn says with a shrug before he shakes Hawkeye's hand, "'The Djinn', 'Iron Man', 'Tin Man', yada, yada, yada..." Golden fingers make dismissive signs of flapping lips on his other hand.

Hawkeye raises an eyebrow, "You don't have a favorite?"

The Djinn shrugs his shoulders, "None of them are very accurate. Djinn are supernatural, and if there is one thing that I hate, it's the handwavey 'magic' attached to the supernatural. And if you have half a brain you can probably guess that his alloy isn't made of something so simple as iron or _tin_.

"Scientists. Everywhere I go..." Hawkeye laments, "You are a Brain, aren't you?"

"I like being hands on, so _engineer_ , thank you. I'm just a damn good one," the Djinn replies with an arrogant tilt of his head.

Hawkeye gives a short laugh, "Okay. Engineer Man—"

"Well that's a new one," the not-Djinn interjects with a hint of a mocking lilt in his otherwise flat, synthetic voice.

"—what is it you wanted?" Hawkeye asked.

"You're asking me all the questions _I_ should be asking _you_ ," the Djinn says, "You know that, right?"

Hawkeye shrugs. They wouldn't be talking if the Djinn didn't want them to be. The guy could rocket off into the wild starry yonder in less than three seconds.

"I want to talk to the Pirate in charge. The one sending his underlings to sniff at my trail," the Djinn said, "It's getting annoying."

"Annoying?" Hawkeye repeats, amused. "Annoying" wasn't what most people would call SHIELD. Shadowy. Frightening. Severe. But annoying?

"Yeah," the Djinn said.

"Anything else?" Hawkeye asked.

"Nope," the Djinn said. His head turned and he lazily raised a hand and with a whine, a flash of light discharged from it and slammed into a person a ways away from them. "That's my cue to go. I've got a base to finish off."

"Have fun?" Hawkeye offered.

"Ha!" the Djinn laughed and blasted into the sky.

Hawkeye's comm quickly lit up with the placid voice of his handler going on in the background. "The Djinn made contact," were his first words, "He wanted to talk. Said SHIELD poking its nose into his business was getting _annoying_.'"

Coulson just sighs with exasperation even though Hawkeye _knows_ the man isn't a robot. "Any good news?"

"He wants to talk to Fury," Hawkeye says.

"He asked for him by name?" Coulson asks.

"No," Hawkeye laughs, "He said he wants 'to talk to the Pirate in charge'. It was hysterical."

" _Pirate?_ " Coulson repeats, completely deadpan.

"Yep," Hawkeye wants to see the Djinn say it to Fury's _face_. It would be _awesome_. Terrifying, but awesome.

"The Director is going to eat him alive," Coulson says slowly.

"You know what?" Hawkeye says thoughtfully, watching the golden speck finally rise further up into the sky and vanish into the night, "I don't think he will."

"Oh?"

"Just a feeling," Hawkeye says as he starts walking away from the ruined, still burning base, "but I think that that guy is a whole hell of a lot more than he seems."


	3. Chapter 3

When a dart of gold plunks itself down on the deck of the supposed aircraft carrier, it is a surprise, because it is noticed moments before it comes in for a landing by the deck crew rather than any of the high tech radars the helicarrier was equipped with.

Fury, despite the surprise, acts as though he had been expecting it and is on-deck on the inside a minute to "welcome" the Djinn aboard.

"Ah..." the Djinn says, motioning with graceful arrogance, "The Pirate himself. I feel flattered." The emotionless voice nevertheless managed to convey the sarcasm inherit in the statement despite its harsh flatness.

Fury feels a headache coming on, "Djinn. Come with me."

"I've decided to go by 'Iron Man', FYI," the Djinn says casually as he walks at Fury's side with a rhythmic whirring of armor, "Agent Archer was asking."

"Good to know," Fury says, "since we have been calling you 'the Djinn' for lack of a better name."

"That one is a definite 'no' on that one, Captain Eyepatch. Supernatural bunk. Yuck."

"Why the nicknames?" Fury asks. Between "Pirate," "Agent Archer," and "Captain Eyepatch" it seemed that it was a bit of a theme with the golden probably-a-man.

Iron Man shrugs and ignores the question. "I like what you've done with the place," Iron Man says instead after they head for the bridge.

"You know it?" Fury asks.

Iron Man runs metal encased fingers over the wall. He knocks his knuckles against a major support strut that ran the length of the ship. "Stark tech. I've made an effort to know _all_ about it."

"That's interesting, considering you seem to have made a concerted effort to destroy all the Stark tech you come across," Fury says dryly as they enter the acoustically silenced briefing room with a glossy black table set in the center of it.

"Not all of it," Iron Man says, seeming to eye the flimsy chairs set around the table and opting to stand rather than test their weight bearing capabilities.

"Oh?" Fury sets himself casually into the chair at the head of the table.

"Weapons," the Djinn says, "Illicit, under-the-table sales of weapons. Would you believe that someone is wilfully propagating the conflict in the Middle East with no goal _but_ that? And an American at that?"

Fury thinks about it for a short moment before he shrugs, before he finally nods and replies, "I wouldn't be surprised." Greed is a powerful motivator in many cases. There are few men strong enough to resist the draw of money and power

"Stark technology," Iron Man says spreading his hands expansively, indicating the very helicarrier around them, "It's the best of the best. Everyone wants it. Few people can get it." Gold fingers flex and rub together pensively, whirring quietly in the silence of the room. "People _shouldn't_ get it, not if they're not supposed to. Only _someone_ has been dealing it under the table. For years. The Middle East, Africa, Asia, Columbia and Peru in South America, Mexico in North America..."

Fury watches the small, involuntary movements as he takes in the way the words are said as much as the fact that they are said at all.

Iron Man's head comes up and he zeros in on Fury, "Ever wonder how the Ten Rings got their hands on Tony Stark himself rather than just black market Stark tech?"

"I'm guessing whoever this..." Fury considers all he has learned in this conversation and all the information that he has picked up and fits the title to the dead, "... _traitor_ is, they are the one that made it happen."

Iron Man gives a disturbing, electronically distorted laugh, "Simple enough conclusion there. Yes. It is a long story, but one man's treason ended with Stark dead, nevertheless."

"And you know all this... how?" Fury asks.

"It's simple, really. Before he died... he made _this_ ," Iron Man says, a finger trailing a circle around the glowing blue light in his chest, "His last "weapon." To make everything... _right_." The hand covered the Djinn's chest, dimming the blue glow that shone from between his golden fingers.

"I see..." Fury says, "Why you? If he was worried about people having his weapons, why would he trust you with something so advanced?"

"Trust?" Iron Man scoffs, " _Trust_ had nothing to do with it. He knew better than that. You're a spy, so shouldn't _you_ know better?"

Fury frowns at him.

"He _trusted_ that I would destroy Stark weaponry, destroy the traitor, that I had a damn good reason to. That is all."

"What about the traitor?" Fury asks.

"I'm working on it," Iron Man says.

"Do you know who it is?" Fury tries again, enunciating each word slowly.

Iron Man doesn't reply for a long, long time, before he says a name that makes everything make _sense_. "Obadiah Stane," Iron Man finally says.

 _Stane?_ Stark's fucking _business partner_? The very man now _running_ the business? So many things that had seemed like mismatched puzzle pieces suddenly slotted together and the picture they made was ugly.

A laugh that is dark even through the filters is swallowed up by the acoustics, "Stane's been a busy, busy man since his former partner oh so _misfortunately_ had run in with 'Afghan insurgents'. The trickle of illicit weapons turned into a flood of them and I've been scrambling to keep a lid on just Afghanistan, much less the rest of the places _Stane_ has been pouring Stark weapons into since he doesn't have to go behind Stark's back."

Fury grits his teeth, wondering how something like this "little" tidbit of information had managed to slip through his fingers. "And where were you after Stark's death if you are so gung-ho about stamping out the man's life's work?" Whether Stark had or had not put Iron Man up to it, it was interesting that the vicious, bloodied avenger in front of him had waited so long to crush Stark's dream.

"...Recovering from a near death experience," Iron Man replies after a moment.

"Right," Fury's expression is sceptical.

Iron Man holds up a hand, fingers flexing as it whines slightly and the glow from his palm increases slightly, "It doesn't matter to me whether you believe me or not. I am going to tear down the stolen empire he gorges with traitorous dealings. I am to introduce Stane to the last works of the man he had butchered and I am going to _ruin_ him the way that he ruined _me_." Iron Man gives another hollow laugh and his hand clenches until there is a creaking groan of the metal that makes up the armor, "Admittedly, it will be a little... _difficult_ to keep him alive long enough to suffer through that last goal of mine."

Fury is contemplative, watching the strange technological marvel that practically shines under the bright lights in the room while effectively vibrating with contained hatred. Vengeance, huh? He'd thought so.

He leans back and pulls out a thin manilla folder. Casually, he drops it on the table and with a flick, sends it spinning to the far end where Iron Man is standing. "Tell me, Iron Man, in all your ill advised snooping, did you ever come across any references to the 'Avengers Initiative'?"


	4. Chapter 4

Clint runs his hands through his hair. "This sucks," he says as he sits down on one dusty box that was much like any other dusty box, "Couldn't they have fixed this place up instead of just tossing us at it and saying 'Here, have fun!'?"

Natasha just stares at him with narrowed eyes, not amused. Dust streaks her red hair grey and there is a smudge on her face. Clint knows that he probably looks even worse.

Clint sighs, "When is Iron Man supposed to show? We could use his muscle."

The other spy glances at her dusty watch. With a grimace, she wipes its face off against her shirt. "He should be here in thirty minutes if he is on time."

"Oh good," Clint says flippantly, leaning back and putting his feet up on another pile of boxes, kicking up another flurry of dust. He coughs, "I think we can just wait for our Genie to appear."

Natasha rolls her eyes and wings Clint's head with a white dusk mask, making him fumble to catch it.

"Thanks," Clint says dryly, but puts it on anyway. He probably should have done it first thing, but he doesn't like the aggravating little things that _pinch_ no matter how he puts them on. The dust really is atrocious.

Clint spends a few minutes trying to adjust the mask to be more comfortable but inevitably failing, he gives it up as a bad job.

He rips the thing off and wanders toward the stairs with a shrug toward Natasha. He'll just wait on the roof where the third, and last, member of their supposed little team would most likely appear. It wasn't like a big armored guy would just walk in the front door after all.

Sure enough, roughly fifteen minutes later, Iron Man pops up out of nowhere, considering Clint has _heard_ how loud those jet boots of his can be that is just _wrong_. Somewhat unnerved by the possibly unintentional display of stealthiness, Clint lets out a crack, "You're early. Who's your GPS provider? They must be good."

Iron Man gives a distorted snort, "Not telling. And of course it is. It's not there are that many freeway signs when I'm cruising at at 10,000 meters."

Clint rolls his eyes, "What about for us guys a little closer to Earth?"

"I dunno," Iron Man says, "It depends on how you feel about having a very sarcastic, very English, back-seat flyer nagging you all the time. 'Perhaps you should have checked your radar cross-section prior to taking flight so you could know that everyone can see you.' 'If you'd look behind you, you might see the F-22 Raptors on your tail.' 'Congratulations on your innovative use of the armor as a ballistic weapon. How _do_ you think of these things?' You know how it is."

Clint stared for a moment before he choked off a laugh, "What kind of fucking GPS is that?" Did this mean that Iron Man had a partner out there somewhere? Before the idea could really take root, Iron Man crushed it.

"Sassy GPSs are the least of it, considering who made it," Iron Man said, sounding the tiniest bit fond under the distortion.

Stark. Right. The guy _would_ make a GPS/flight system designed to mock the user if what he'd read about the guy was right.

Clint eyes the man, actually taking in changes because it is his first time seeing Iron Man show his "face" again for the first time since he fucked off into the sunset after the... interesting day he'd stopped by the helicarrier like it was a burger joint rather than a highly classified base that could float around in the sky like some kind of unholy merger between an aircraft carrier and a bloated whale. It is the first time that he's been to the run down "HQ" that had been been "kindly" donated for their use.

The most noticeable thing is that Iron Man is no longer just plain gold. If "plain" could ever be used for a person who should seem gaudy but manages not to with his overwhelming personality. Rich red covered over half of his armored skin and several smaller nodes of glowing light dotting his body.

Iron Man's hands are red now.

Clint isn't sure why such an inane little change keeps drawing his attention.

Actually, that is a lie.

Clint knows _exactly_ why the change catches his attention.

The red colored metal covers Iron Man's forearms nearly to the elbow and it will hide the blood splatter much better than the shiny gold they had been before. Probably a good thing, considering the man's bad habit of sometimes gutting terrorists with his bare hands.

It's a finished feature that a spy notes almost by habit. Guys like Iron Man... not so much.

It makes Clint wonder if Iron Man just wants to see the blood he has on his hands all the time. He shakes the stray thought off because it is morbid, even for him. He doesn't particularly want to know the answer if it is true.

"Wanna come inside?" Clint asks, "Help sort through the dusty old boxes and try to put this place into something resembling order?"

"Sure, and no," Iron Man says, and they stare at each other. Or at least Clint stares at Iron Man.

"You are an asshole," Clint replies after a moment.

"Yes I am," Iron Man nods unrepentantly.

"Dammit," Clint growls, before he laughs. "Well, you're in good company with me and Natasha can handle a couple assholes." She puts up with _Clint_ after all, even when he is trying to be particularly obnoxious. "Come on," he motions Iron Man to follow him inside, down the stupidly sturdy stairs in the stupidly sturdy building and they only groan a little at the weight.

Iron Man doesn't stumble even once, even though you'd think that navigating steps in a virtual _tank_ would be awkward, even if it is human-shaped.

Natasha looks up, and raises an eyebrow at Clint's tag-along, but she sets the boxes she is holding down and brushes the dust off of her hands. "Iron Man," she says perfunctorily.

"I'm not a team player," is the first thing that Iron Man says to her as they gather into a small group made up of two unassuming assassins and a showy, armored-clad technological marvel.

Natasha stays impassive while Clint snorts.

"Neither of us thought you were, oh assholish leader," Clint says.

Iron Man recoils at that. "And _that_. Why the hell am I suddenly 'leader' of a team?" Iron Man throws up his hands and stalks back and forth along the wall, dust settling on his stupidly shiny armor and streaking it grey. "Hell. How did I end up letting myself be talked into this little... _boyband_ belonging to The Spy?"

Natasha clears her throat pointedly, making Iron Man pause.

"No offence, oh most delightfully deadly widow-maker," the still anonymous man — despite SHIELD's best efforts — adds at her sharp look, "but this is obviously some kind of stunt on his part. I mean... 'The Avengers Initiative?' What are we supposed to be avenging?"

"It is just a code name," Natasha says coolly. Clint only knows that she too is irritated by this unasked-for change in job options hasn't had her much pleased herself from the long years of knowing her.

"You have a better idea?" Clint asks, amused.

"How about the Super Friends!" Iron Man gestures with grand sarcasm, "Oh, I know! The Justice League! This dump could be our Hall of Justice, a shining beacon of Peace, and Justice for all Mankind!" Iron Man pauses and turns to Natasha and adds, "And all Womankind too."

Clint can't help the snickers escaping at Iron Man's irritated little diva rant. It wasn't like it wasn't something he hadn't thought himself. Natasha had probably done the same, though probably far less histrionically.

A small almost-there smile appears on even Natasha's lips as she eyes Iron Man with something resembling amusement.


	5. Meeting

Phil drums his fingers on the weathered surface of the solid oak table, waiting for the newest asset that he will be working as the primary handler of. He is used to working with Clint and Natasha, but it will be... interesting to see how the four of them can integrate together into a team.

The lack of certainty is even more exacerbated by the sheer emptiness of the man's file save for the relatively sparse amount of speculation on Iron Man's attributes and history.

The little boy in him though, the one that still believes despite everything that the adult has seen and done and knows, still squirms beneath his calm front at the though of meeting this high tech... _hero_.

Clint had declared the man an ass, but seemed to think that it counted in Iron Man's favor while Natasha simply withheld her judgment but seemed speculative with an intrigued tinge.

Not exactly an auspicious start, but it could be worse.

Natasha arrives first, as is the norm. Clint arrives next, at the exact second before he would be late, which is also perfectly normal.

Phil eyes the door for a moment wondering if Iron Man is usually late, but hopefully, this is not going to be a habit.

Regardless, Phil eyed his two agents for a moment before sighing, "Clint. Natasha. We should get started. Update me on our new... teammate." It is an odd word in his mouth, because before they hadn't been a _team_ , but a handler and assets. A team is a different animal, no matter how small a team they are.

Clint gives an aggravated grin, "The guy is a absolute riot. He's a weirdo that I'm pretty sure lives in that armor of his, but a riot."

"Natasha?" Phil asks.

Natasha nods in agreement with Clint's general assessment, "He is blunt, crude, and a self-proclaimed ass with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. He appears to wear his armor at all hours of the day. Signs point to him being very intelligent." She frowns, "Sir, the report indicated that Stark created the armor?"

Phil frowns thoughtfully, remembering the meeting between the Director and Iron Man, "That is what Iron Man _implied_." The man didn't actually _say_ it though...

Nodding, Natasha says, "I think that the armor is _Iron Man's_ creation, not Stark's. The continuous improvements to it don't make any sense otherwise."

"Yeah," Clint pipes up, "the guy has gone through at least two versions that I've seen up close and they are definitely getting more and more refined."

Phil nods, making note on his file, "Anything else?"

Natasha and Clint glance at each other before the archer shrugs.

Phil pins them both with a mild glare. They are being less than helpful here.

"Sorry Phil," Clint grins, "I think you should just meet the guy first. He's... interesting."

Phil sighs and closes his file, "That does not help me get a feeling for him now." The senior agent frowns at his sparse file absently notating it with comments from his two assets while he waited. His own speculation about what he is going to be dealing with relegated to scrap paper.

Five minutes pass after Phil finishes his notes and he is frowning at his watch when the door opens to admit the loudly colored, armor-wearing, late arrival. Phil is surprised that the entire thing is even more impressive in person than the relatively low quality video captures he had reviewed.

Phil rises and steps forward, hand extended, "Iron Man, I am Agent Coulson. I was the handler for Agents Barton and Romanov prior to the creation of this team. I look forward to continuing to support the team to the best of my capacity."

The cool, smooth metal hand met his own and they shook, "Agent. Heard a bit about you from that guy over there with the stupid grin." Clint flips him off but Iron Man merely replies with a flippant, sarcastic, "Yeah, yeah, I love you too, you bastard." By contrast, he nodded toward Natasha and greeted her with a more restrained, but still irreverent, "Scary Lady."

Natasha gives him a thin-lipped smile, but Phil can see the restrained, amused tolerance towards him that was similar to how she had treated Clint when they were more used to each other.

Any other handler might have despaired at the apparent hostility between the three members of the team, but Phil could see that the animosity there… didn't actually exist. Iron Man and Clint were just casually ragging on each other while Natasha watched the idiocy and she mentally tallied the score, only occasionally interjecting a particularly effective zing.

Phil hides a chuckle. This team will probably do just fine.


	6. Hunting

"This is a bad idea," Iron Man says for what seems like the millionth time.

"We _get it_ , Iron Man," Clint says, "Now shut up."

"When this inevitably blows up in your faces I am going to be the one laughing and saying 'I told you so,'" the armored Avenger says.

* * *

The roar washes over them before a giant green humanoid creature explodes out of the trees in a shower of splintered wood and leaves and lands a short ways from them.

The Hulk turns and growls at them, tense and ready to smash.

When Iron Man steps closer, completely fearlessly, the Hulk roars at him.

Stay away.

Iron Man stops, then, making his teammates question his sanity, he starts gushing at the big guy.

"Oh, fuck. You are even more awesome than I had thought, big guy! I mean, _wow_ ," heedless of the green rage monster, Iron Man turns toward Clint, putting his back towards the Hulk. He points sharply towards the archer and crows loudly with unfeigned, unironic enthusiasm, "This is me, saying I told you so."

The rage on the Hulk's face peppers with confusion and suspicion. He is not used to being disregarded. People run away or attack him, they don't just stand there and be not-afraid/not-angry.

"You, are insane," Clint tells Iron Man flatly, "I keep saying that you have all the survival instincts of a lemming but no one believes that I'm being completely serious." When he notices the Hulk leaning closer to Iron Man, his eyes bulge and he takes a cautious step back and...

The Hulk sniffs Iron Man.

He doesn't smell like a human. He smells like metal and thunderstorms and machine oil.

Bizarrely, when Iron Man notices that the Hulk is right behind him, centimeters from his face, he doesn't even startle.

"Oh, hey," the odd, human-shaped machine person says in a weird sounding voice instead, "What's up?"

"Different," Hulk says. Doesn't sound human either.

He likes the metal man.


	7. Suffering

Bruce watches as Iron Man curls in on himself as he stares out the window into the gloom and the rain. "Fucking _rain_ ," he mumbles faintly.

Despite the armor, Bruce thinks that he's gotten pretty good at reading his teammate's body language, and what he reads in Iron Man's posture right then translates into "I'm hurting. A lot." Bruce sets down his tablet and watches for a bit longer before saying anything. "Iron Man?"

Iron Man starts and his posture shifts immediately to the collected, nonchalant arrogance that was by far more familiar, wiping away any trace of pain, "Oh. Bruce. Hey."

Bruce pauses, eyeing the change in posture untrustingly. Rain and the accompanying barometric drop tended to aggravate aches and pains so Bruce doesn't find it odd that Iron Man might have old injuries acting up, considering the man's track record, but the fact that Iron Man can _hide_ all signs of that pain so completely is highly unnerving and makes Bruce wonder just how often Iron Man is hurting that the armored man can so easily set the pain to the side. "Are you okay?" he tries.

"Huh?" Iron Man asks, head tilting to the side, "What do you mean?"

"You looked..." Bruce hesitates, wondering if it was really his place to mention it, but he doesn't think that Iron Man has anyone _else_ to worry about him, "You looked like you were in pain."

Iron Man doesn't say anything and the silence stretched uncomfortably as his expressionless "face" just stares at Bruce until Bruce begins to wonder just how badly he's overstepped his bounds with the team leader. Just as he's about to apologize and rapidly back-pedal, Iron Man slumps and sighs, weariness clinging to him like a cloak. "It's the weather, Brucy, that's all."

"Isn't there anything I can do?" Bruce asks. Iron Man was Iron Man, always so hidden away behind a suit of armor, both physical and mental, that it was hard to reach him sometimes. Iron Man didn't eat or drink in company, so offering him comfort foods or soothing teas were out. Iron Man did not have the dexterity for Yoga so that kind of meditation was off the list entirely. Bruce knows that Iron Man refuses all kinds of pain medications and acupressure, which Bruce would have offered, wasn't exactly something that could be done through gold-titanium alloy.

Asking Iron Man to remove his armor was so far out of line when it comes to the enigmatic man that Bruce could barely even conceive of actually going through with asking the man to do so.

Iron Man shakes his head. "I'll be fine."

Bruce... doesn't believe him. _Can't_ believe him. Not with the pain he can see creeping back into Iron Man's posture alongside the bone-deep weariness. "If there's ever anything I can do to help..." he offers hesitantly, "I'd be happy to help."

Iron Man shrugs, "Don't really need anything. But thanks anyway."

Bruce nods, "Just keep it in mind, please."


	8. Stealthing

Iron Man's armor is, for once, disturbingly silent. There is not even the quiet, habitual whirr of the intricate internal mechanisms that the two assassins have accustomed themselves to listening for. Contrary to everything they had been expecting when Iron Man had mentioned a "stealth suit," it isn't shiny or glowing anywhere that they can see and looks like it might actually be passable… for an amateur in going unnoticed.

"Well?" comes Iron Man's deep, expectant question.

Phil unexpectedly nods approvingly at the matte, _non_ -red-and-gold finish. "Better," he says, "Much better." Considering that Phil had been rather convinced that subtlety was not a word that Iron Man had in his vocabulary, just about _anything_ is progress.

Phil will likely still prefer to leave the skulking about to the ones trained to do it the best, and who aren't wearing a tank's worth of armor 24-7, but the fact that they have the option makes Iron Man's potential applications that much wider.

The man is still their equivalent to calling in a precision tactical air strike, simply by virtue of his metaphorical weight class and armament, but all too often, they are forced to place Iron Man further away from Natasha and Clint than would be preferable simply because the armor is just so in your face that it gets immediate attention. It does make him an excellent distraction though.

Of course, at least the armor-clad Avenger knew that there is such a thing as subtlety. The Hulk, on the other hand, doesn't. When the Hulk was applying subtlety, he had turned back into Banner.

When they needed smashing, the Hulk was fine, but you don’t use a sledgehammer when a scalpel is called for.


	9. Finding

"...Guys? I think I found something... interesting."

Clint, Natasha, and Phil all share wary looks. "Interesting", when it came to Iron Man just about always had Chinese curse connotations.

* * *

"…Well," Clint says slowly, "Yeah. I'll call that 'interesting' alright."

Natasha stares blankly at Iron Man's find and says nothing.

Bruce was bundled up asleep in the jet so he has nothing to contribute but Phil…

Phil seems dazed, caught between the heights of excitement and the depths of sorrow.

"Captain America…" he breathes softly, resting his gloved hand against the iced over shield reverently.


	10. Planning

"You can't possibly be thinking this is a good idea, Agent," Iron Man says flatly.

Phil merely stares at his most troublesome asset mildly.

"Agent... _Phil_ ," Iron Man tries, visibly almost pleading to a man that had gotten to know the enigmatic Stark legacy, "You _can't_ be thinking of going along with this. This is _stupid_. There is no possible good ending for this to stunt."

Phil sighs and decides to humor him. He flattens his hands out on his desk, "Okay. Say that we decided not to go through with this. What would you suggest we do?"


	11. Dreaming

He is cold. Cold, cold, cold, _cold_.

"Captain?" a deep, multi-toned voice says. A hard, warm hand wraps around his own and squeezes lightly.

He opens his eyes, wincing from the bright flare of light as a groan drags itself from his throat.

The lights immediately dim, much to his relief, "Captain? Can you hear me?"

"Wha...?" his mouth is dry. It's like a whole desert's worth of sand had been poured into his mouth at some point but he is so cold, like his bones have been turned to ice.

"Captain?"

"Water?" he asked around a thick, heavy tongue.

"One moment," the voice said, before something cold and slippery was placed against his lips, "You can only have ice chips for now. You've been out for a while and we don't want you to get sick."

He makes an embarrassing grunt-whine as he sucks on the quickly vanishing bit of frozen water. "More?" he asked raspily.

"Of course," another small sliver of ice is given to him and he lets it melt. The next time, he doesn't even have to ask for more, as the voice offers him a steady supply of the blessedly cool ice cubes.

He doesn't know how long it is before he actually tries pealing his eyes open again, and spots a gleaming shape of red and gold that he has to blink several times to try to understand just what it is that he is seeing. "What _are_ you?"

The voice laughs, and it's a metallic, humming sound, "Just a man, Captain. I go by Iron Man."

Iron Man? he wonders with a slow blink before another question dawns on him, "You called me Captain. Why?"

Iron Man's head tilts as a brilliant red gauntlet proffers another ice chip, "Why wouldn't I? You're the Captain."

" _The_ Captain?" he asks. He can tell that Iron Man thinks that means something to him but... "I don't... I don't know what you mean. I don't know..." He blinks quickly and swallows, "Do you... know who I am?"

"Uh... Captain America?" Iron Man offers but when he only blinks back at the armor-clad man, Iron Man leans back abruptly, "Steve Rogers?"

"Is that my name?" he asks.

"Yeah," Iron Man says after a long, stunned moment, "Shit. I mean, yeah. That's your name. Steve Rogers."

"Oh," Steve says, "Okay."

"Shit," Iron Man repeats, making Steve frown disapprovingly at him.

"Do you always curse so much?" Steve asks, "That can't be polite. I hope you don't curse like that in front of the dames."

Iron Man groans and mutters something uninterpretable under his breath when the door opens and a tall man with dark skin — and Steve was... surprised? Why was he surprised? — and an eye patch and what Steve feels is a truly unwarranted amount of leather enters the room. Maybe leather was fashionable? Somehow Steve didn't think so. But the leather and visible face was an improvement over wondering if everyone wore armor like Iron Man.

"Bet you weren't expecting this," Iron Man says with a wave of a hand.

Steve frowns but the new man ignores Iron Man entirely and comes to a halt at the foot of Steve's bed, "It's good to see you awake, Captain Rogers. I am Director Fury, of SHIELD."

"Uh..." Steve hesitates, "Do I know you?"

Director Fury's expression doesn't change, "No, Captain, you do not."

Steve gives Iron Man a puzzled look, but the armored man merely leans back and crosses his arms over the brightly glowing circle inset in his chest. Steve turns back to the Director wondering what was going on.

The Director just stares at him like he was a particularly puzzling anomaly, "Do you remember anything at all, Captain?"

Steve tries to remember anything again, but comes up blank. Again. He shakes his head, "I don't remember anything, sir."

Still, Director Fury's severe expression doesn't change. "I see..." is all he says to Steve. He turns to Iron Man who seems completely unmoved himself. "He's yours," Fury says to Iron Man.

"You act like he's a dog or a cat that you want me to take home with me," Iron Man says irreverently in a way that grates on Steve's sensibilities, wherever those were coming from. The man really should show more respect to a man in a position like Director. "I mean, I can get where you might think that I'm running a home for wayward superhumans considering you pretty much shoved it in my lap, but you don't get to just—"

"I'm not going to take your bullshit right now, Iron Man. You said you wanted him for the Initiative. Are you going to take that back now?" Director Fury says, blank faced.

More cursing? Steve wonders, even as he tries to decipher the cryptic speech of the two seemingly adversarial men.

"I'll take him," Iron Man says, "but I thought _you_ wanted him. What do you think he's not good enough for use as a figurehead without his memories? What? Is he not good enough for your... organization now that you know he has amnesia?" Adversarial was one way to put it. Hostile was another. The real question was what it was that they _weren't_ saying.

"I don't have to explain myself to _you_ ," Directory Fury says dryly, "Transfer arrangements will be made. Be prepared to receive him."

Iron Man gives a metallic snort, "Right, right. Whatever you say." Iron Man turns to Steve and shrugs at him, "Good news! You're not going to be stuck with that guy. You get to bunk with me and my buddies."

"Iron Man!" Director Fury growls.

Iron Man swivels back, seeming to affect an air of surprise despite the complete and utter lack of facial expression visible, "You're still here?"

Steve can't help but snort, but he quickly swallows his smile when the Director turns an unimpressed look his way.

"I hope you enjoy Iron Man's... hospitality," Director Fury says wryly, "Good day, Captain." He swirls around and leaves with a flourish, leaving behind silence in his wake.

"Is he..." Steve makes a small, helpless wave in the door's direction, where Director Fury had vanished.

Iron Man gives a short laugh. "He likes having that effect on people," Iron Man informs him, "It's _very_ intentional."

"...I see," Steve says slowly, but he's too tired to think much more beyond that.

Iron Man notices and pats him on the arm gingerly, like he's not entirely sure that he's supposed to and stands, "You should get some rest. Like I said, you've been down for a long time, it's only normal that you're tired.

Steve stifles a yawn anyway, "You'll be here when I wake up?" Steve does _not_ contemplate that he might not remember this conversation the next time he wakes up either and the new memories might go to wherever his other memories had gone.

Iron Man squeezes his shoulder, "I'll be here. Either me or one of my team-mates anyway, with my luck, aliens will invade and I'll have to go contain them instead." The armored man's metallic voice is wry.

Steve's eyes are closed when he realizes what Iron Man has said. He blinks his eyes open blearily. " _Aliens?_ " he asks with groggy incredulity.

"Aliens," Iron Man nods.

"That's just not right," Steve mutters as he sinks into the grip of sleep, hearing Iron Man's dual-toned laugh as he does.


	12. Awakening

Iron Man is gone when he wakes up again, leaving Steve to wonder if the man wrapped in fantastical armor had just been a dream.

Feeling many times stronger than he had the previous time, Steve sits up and spots a mousy-looking man with slightly greying hair and somewhat threadbare clothing sitting not far from his bed. He's holding a pen-like object which he calmly taps on a flat, black... thing that is about the size of a book but much thinner. He looks up and their eyes meet.

He's wearing neither armor, nor leather, but a rich purple dress shirt.

A nervous smile appears on the man's face and he rises to his feet. He places the odd thing and the maybe-pen down on the ledge next to him and shuffles closer. "Good afternoon," he says in greeting, hovering in an almost painfully reserved way.

"Good afternoon," Steve replies. He runs a hand through his hair as the moment stretched on awkwardly, grimacing at the greasy feel of it. "I'm sorry," he says, "who are you? Where's..." He hesitates to mention Iron Man, or the leather-clad Director, because in the light of day streaming through the window makes the both of them seem like dreams, rather than something that could have actually happened.

"Ah," the man relaxes slightly, "my name is Bruce Banner. I'm an Avenger?"

Steve blinks. "An avenger?" he asks.

"I'm part of Iron Man's team," Banner tries.

"Oh," Steve says smartly. "I thought I'd imagined him," tumbles out before he can censor himself, but luckily a flicker of mirth supplants Banner's nervousness for a moment.

"While Iron Man is definitely memorable, I'm glad that you seem to show no signs of anterograde amnesia. I will say that he has that kind of effect on people," Banner says, "even people who aren't suffering from a severe case of retrograde amnesia."

Steve wonders at the odd terms but focuses on trying to figure out what is going on, "Then I didn't imagine Director Fury either then, or that he wears... a fair bit of leather?" Steve didn't know why the leather thing bothered him but it just seemed to be an obnoxious amount of it.

Unlike the question about Iron Man, this time Banner makes a controlled flinch and his answer is almost clipped, "Probably not."

Another awkward silence falls between them, before Steve realizes that Banner hadn't actually answered his initial question and repeats it.

"Right, he's actually out running an op in Afghanistan," Bruce says, "He said he couldn't put it off any longer or he wouldn't be able to run it at all."

So Iron Man is... Somewhere. On a mission. "When is he supposed to be back?" Steve asks.

"Later in the day," Banner says, starting to pick over the machines that are set up against the wall.

"Is this Afghanistan place nearby then?" Steve frowns, "Speaking of, where _is_ here?"

Banner turns to him and ruffles his curly hair, "We're actually not too far out from New York, on board the helicarrier, a flying aircraft carrier. It belongs to SHIELD. Afghanistan is over six thousand miles away, across the Atlantic Ocean."

Steve frowns, knowing that that can't be right, but what did he know? "You can do that? Shouldn't it take... well... longer?"

Banner shakes his head, a gentle tinge of amusement returning, "Iron Man can."

Steve processes that for a moment before he sighs. "Is that going to be an important answer to keep in mind when asking questions about him?" he asks, amused despite himself.

"It is a thing," Banner smiles, a chuckle hiding behind his words, "Iron Man is a force unto himself, a force of nature. Not even he can always explain how or why he does some things."

Steve tilts his head, remembering the air that had surrounded the surrealistic mechanical man. A force of nature? Steve thinks that fits what little he knows.

Steve thinks he might like this particular force of nature.

_Just a little though, not too much_ , he thinks.

Only a moment later, Steve catches the thought and wonders at where it had come from. _What is that supposed to mean?_ he asks himself.


	13. Adapting

Steve shades his eyes from the sun beating down. While he had been stuck inside, being visited by the various, curious "Avengers" had trickled through. Unlike most of the Shield agents that he met, he didn't feel like some kind of bizarre side show for people to stare at to the potentially equally unusual people making up the team that worked with Iron Man.

Speaking of…

The glint of red and gold draws his eyes farther afield where Iron Man is conducting exercises with the sleek, gunmetal gray jets that Steve had watched take off from the flying… monstrosity he was on earlier. Apparently, it had flown all the way from New York to the arid skies over the open desert of Nevada.

"Amazing, isn't it?" Fury says, leaning against the railing next to Steve. Steve glances to the side but Fury is staring intently at Iron Man as he puts the Shield pilots through their paces.

"Didn't think you'd say so," Steve replies looking back up himself, "…sir."

"Just because Iron Man is an egotist and an asshole doesn't mean that what he's done isn't amazing, it just means that his head doesn't need any more inflating."

Steve smiles, keeps it from becoming a smirk even if he really wants it to, "Man knows what he's worth then, I'm guessing."

"Does he ever," Fury grouses, sounding much less antagonistic than the first time they met.

Steve doesn't trust it.

"If I didn't know it was impossible I'd say that Stark's ghost come back as a robot just to come back to haunt us all as an entertaining diversion in between crushing the man who ordered him assassinated. His first public name was Djinn, given by the people he saved and hunted both. You know what a djinni is, Captain?"

"A genie, sir? Grants wishes? Stuck in a lamp?"

"Try a little more middle eastern," Fury says, "More like powerful supernatural figures that can swat humans like bugs if they feel like it." Fury smirks, "Man didn't like the supernatural bit, to say the least."

"…" Steve doesn’t really have a reply for that.

They both just watch as Iron Man flits about, "killing" the jets several times in quick succession.

"Have you thought about what you are going to be doing in the future, Captain Rogers? With the Avengers?" Fury asks after a while.

Steve closes his eyes, "Not exactly, sir. I've mostly been trying to get a handle on being _here_ in the first place. It's amazing, but…"

"Ah…" Fury sighs, "There's always a but, isn't there?" He claps Steve firmly on the shoulder, and meets Steve's two eyes with his single, burningly intent one, "Think about it."

"…Yes, sir."

"See that you do," Fury nods and pushes back from the railing, "See you around, Captain."


End file.
